Saturday, June 26, 2010

Arugula Pesto, Two Ways

With all the arugula we got from our CSA this year, I had a few opportunities to make arugula pesto. I tried a few different recipes from various sources. (They are listed in the order I made them, not by preference.)

The first recipe I tried was one from my mom's new seasonal Cooking Light book. (The recipe happens to be available online, here.) This particular recipe uses pine nuts and Parmesan cheese. Because I freeze my pesto, I exclude the cheese and just add it in when I actually use it - it freezes better that way. The recipe also calls for lemon juice. We tried it with regular pasta as well as ravioli. It was good, but I wasn't blown away.

Next, I tried a recipe from the Williams-Sonoma book, New Flavors for Vegetables. The recipe is for sauteed yellow pear tomatoes with arugula pesto and feta, but I made just the pesto since the tomatoes are not yet in season. This pesto excludes cheese, because it's meant to be served with feta, and adds basil leaves. Here, walnuts are used instead of pine nuts, and the zest of the lemon is used instead of the juice. (I think I added a little splash of juice anyway, as I was multiplying the recipe and didn't have enough lemon zest.) I tried this pesto only with a spoon, not in an actual dish (so far) but it was delicious and I liked it much more than the first recipe I tried. I look forward to making the sauteed tomato recipe as intended.